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The French loanword ennui comes from the very same Late Latin word that gave us annoy — inodiare ("to make loathsome"). We borrowed ennui several centuries after absorbing annoy into the language. Ennui deals more with boredom than irritation - and a somewhat specific sort of boredom at that. It generally refers to the feeling of jadedness that can result from living a life of too much ease. The poet Charles Lloyd described it well in his 1823 Stanzas to Ennui when he referred to that world-weary sensation as a "soul-destroying fiend" which visits with its "pale unrest / The chambers of the human breast / Where too much happiness hath fixed its home."
Synonyms
Examples of ennui in a Sentence
Roger G. Newton, The Truth of Science, 1997
Chauncey and I were keen enough about our aesthetic solution to the ennui of war to try to proselytize others. He organized discussion groups with the crew; I took volunteers to visit landmarks …
—Louis Auchincloss, "Atlantic War,"
in Authors at Sea, ed. Robert Shenk, 1997
The attendant outside was standing on tennis balls, exercising the soles of her feet, her body swaying back and forth with the ennui of jelly.
—Edna O'Brien, New Yorker, 17 June 1991
Thus the days of life are consumed, one by one, without an object beyond the present moment; ever flying from the ennui of that, yet carrying it with us …
—Thomas Jefferson, in a letter dated 7 Feb. 1787
Thomas Jefferson: Writings, 1984
the kind of ennui that comes from having too much time on one's hands and too little will to find something productive to do
Hannah Giorgis, The Atlantic, 24 Sep. 2024
Bad days at work are inevitable, just as some degree of frustration and ennui is bound to be a part of almost any job.
—Harvard Business Review, 19 Apr. 2024
His tense and stoical performances, often as seductive men filled with inner turmoil, were marked by sudden outbursts of violence and emotion as well as an underlying ennui characteristic of French and Italian movies in the postwar era.
—Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter, 17 Aug. 2024
Paul Giamatti is almost-middle-aged ennui personified, with Thomas Haden Church as his unfaithful sidekick; though steeped in melancholy, their raucous last hurrah in wine country is a celebration for the ages.
—Wilson Chapman, IndieWire, 16 July 2024
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Cite this Entry
“Ennui.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ennui. Accessed 11 Dec. 2024.
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